


One Hundred Feet Up

by clusband



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 02:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19032790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clusband/pseuds/clusband
Summary: She comes out of nowhere, uninvited and unpredictable, fading in and out of your life like a good mood.





	One Hundred Feet Up

She comes out of nowhere, uninvited and unpredictable, fading in and out of your life like a good mood.

She’s standing beside a light post, unbelievably ethereal in the harsh light of the city. Her head is tilted back, her posture straight and proud, as she looks up towards a high rise hivestem. It’s leaning slightly left, the weight disturbed by half-assed patchwork in the way the drones reserve for lowbloods.

Your head is pounding so much that you think, maybe this isn’t real. But you know it’s real, because you know her.

There’s something about her, the way the steady stream of people flow around her as she stares, undisturbed; or maybe it’s her intent expression, an excited smile on her face, as she stares up at the ugliest building in the city. She looks like she doesn’t belong here.

Not that she’s a country bumpkin or anything- she looks elegant, her long skirt catching the wind, her hand catching her hat and holding it to her head as the breeze blows it off her head. And she laughs the lawless laugh of someone who doesn’t know better, that in the city, people can hear you.

You wonder if she walked all the way from her hive to this spot, undisturbed by the buildings in her way. She doesn’t know the rules of this world, and she doesn’t pretend to. You wouldn’t be surprised if she just walked through the walls, barely touching brick and plaster. Just because she didn’t know better, and just because she could.

And suddenly, you wonder if she’s here to see you.

“Hey,” you catch her attention. And it’s not like it’s this big fucking deal or anything, you’ve known her for sweeps. She doesn’t turn to look at you, she probably already saw you staring at her like an idiot.

In fact, she doesn’t acknowledge your ‘hey’ at all.

“I want to go up there,” she says, by way of greeting. Her smile has gone dreamy, all of the sudden, her eyes closing as the wind disturbs her hair like a fucking ghibli movie. She catches her hat again. Unreal. Why the fuck would she want to go up there anyway? Probably all there is is dust. Maybe garbage.

“Then go up there,” you say, not sure if you should leave her alone or if she’s trying to rope you into…. Whatever it is she’s doing. “You’re psychic, it’s not like you have to take the stairs.” You prepare to leave. Maybe she’ll follow you. You hope she does.

But she finally turns to look at you, bewilderment twisting all of her features. If you were feeling a little better, you might have laughed. But you aren’t.

Her gaze softens as she takes in your features, and you know you must look like shit. She smiles at you, that sympathetic sort of smile that all moirails give each other, with the eyebrows drawn in. Voyeurs everywhere would sigh dreamily, if only you two weren’t the lowest of the low. That thought makes this whole thing feel a little better to you, more like real life and less like a movie, and you finally let your features soften. It’s nothing like a smile, or a sigh, but it’s enough for her.

She leans in to your space, smiling conspiratorially at you.

“I was thinking about climbing the ladders, actually,” and suddenly, you notice the myriad of fire escapes, balconies, and iron ladders hastily welded into the side of the building. It’s a death trap. Before your face even has time to pale, she’s off, laughing and whooping as she runs right through the intersection, weaving through traffic. Oh my fucking God.

“Aradia!” you call after her, but you know there’s really fuck all you can do to stop her, so you follow her instead.

Sweeps of rappelling into caves, and just generally doing Aradia things, have made her strong, so you know better than to pry her off the iron bars. Instead, you float and fret in equal measure as she makes her way up. Her hat falls off of her head as she climbs, a hundred feet up, but it doesn’t stop her. You catch it instead. It seems to take a lifetime, and also no time at all, until she’s pulling herself over the final lip, up onto the roof. You land next to her, legs shaky with adrenaline.

She laughs as she makes her way over to the west side of the building, holding her hand over her eyes and taking in the view of the city.

It’s close to moonset- you’re suddenly very grateful that your own hivestem is about a five minute walk from here. The view doesn’t make much of an impression on you- the city is still dirty and loud, the people still annoying. But you stand with her anyway, listening to her laugh and point out things about the city you would have never noticed.

For instance: there is an alleyway, hidden from street view, filled with multicolored paper lanterns and streamers and merchants tightly packed in. People make their quiet way through, savoring the sights, somber in their secrecy. She points this out and tells you all about how it reminds her of this riverbed near her hive- though it’s mostly dried up during this time of sweep, the mineral rich soil around it allows wildflowers and bugs and animals to grow in abundance. She tells you that watching the people slowly pick the merchants clean reminds her of when she watched all of these bugs pick clean the carcass of a field mouse on those same banks in just as short a time. She took the skull home- you remember seeing it in the background of her respiteblock once, on one of your grype calls, so long ago now.

You place her hat gently back on her head, sick of holding onto it, and lacking the words to speak. She gives you that look again, that oh, Sollux, kind of look. You don’t mean to, but you bristle. You want to tell her that she can pick you clean faster than even those bugs did to that mouse. But you know that she knows that already. You didn’t realize how bad your mood was.

But instead of doing what you expect- a pap to the cheek, maybe, or a kiss to your nose while her hand brushes yours- she sits on the ledge. And you know to follow her.

Even though the both of you are psychic, and falling isn’t really an issue, the view makes your vision spin, your gut lurch. Some fears really are primal, you guess. She laces the tips of her fingers with yours, watching the city. You wonder what she sees, suddenly desperate for her point of view.

Instead, she says, “What’s wrong?”

And you couldn’t begin to even tell her. That today is just one of those hollow days- food doesn’t sate you, nor are you particularly hungry. Your walk, fresh air, didn’t make you feel any better or any worse. How nothing in your life is anything more than it is right now.

So maybe that’s a good place to start.

“I don’t know,” you tell her. And she doesn’t look at you with frustration, or worse, with pity. Everything in her face tells you that she understands. That some days just press down on you, and there’s nothing you can do to escape it. You know she’s been here, too, in this mood.

“Well… I’m glad I’m here, then,” she says, moving closer to you. And you think you were supposed to say how you’re glad she’s here, but something about the way she said it made you pause. You wish she didn’t have to worry about you, but she does, and, conflictingly, you’re so, so thankful for it.

“Heh, yeah,” you say lamely. Then, so quietly you wonder if she can even hear you, “the night was better with you here.”

And if you’re blushing, too honest by far, she doesn’t give you shit for it.

“Even though I made you chase me through traffic?” she asks, laughing openly, right into your face. Her breath smells sweet and fresh, like what you imagine grass to smell like. It’s cool against your face. The humidity of the city rises, you guess, and you didn’t even realize until now.

But you laugh on cue, like the hilarity of the situation catches up with you. It doesn’t feel genuine, not really, but a laugh is a laugh. Maybe you can trick your brain into feeling…. If not better, then something.

Her hand is rough and solid and warm in yours, like a stone laid out in the sun. She moves into your space, bringing her hand up to your cheek. She wipes her thumb under your eye, the red one, as if you’d been crying, then she runs her hand down the side of your face, until she stops, her hand in your hair, behind your ear.

“Oh, Sollux,” she finally says, like you knew she would.

And, one hundred feet up, she kisses you once, sweetly, on the mouth.


End file.
